This invention relates to control panels for appliances and the like and, more particularly, to an improved construction of a touch sensitive control panel which provides capacitive coupling between a body portion of an operator touching the control panel and a conductive region.
Many domestic appliances, such as, for example, sewing machines, microwave ovens, televisions, etc., are presently constructed with touch sensitive control panels. Such control panels typically respond to the capacitive effect of a user's touch for both controlling the operation of the appliance and for providing visual feedback to the operator of such operation. These control panels have been typically constructed of a continuous planar element such as a glass panel to which circuitry and functional indicia are applied as by deposition or the like. A problem with such a control panel is that it is relatively expensive to manufacture, the application of circuitry and functional indicia to a glass panel being a time consuming, multistep process.
It is therefore a primary object of this invention to provide a control panel of the type having a plurality of touch sensitive areas in proximate relationship to corresponding functional indicia which is of economical construction.
A further problem associated with glass touch panels is their susceptibility to deterioration from chemical solvents and the like which may be applied thereto during, for example, the cleaning of the control panel.
It is therefore another object of this invention to provide a construction for a control panel which provides for durability and resistance to chemical solvents.